'Tsunami on its way, gonna happen any day'

Preparedness, resignation at coastal summit

By TOM PAULSON, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, February 9, 2005

LONG BEACH -- Not ready.

That may best describe the basic consensus after a daylong "Coastal Tsunami Summit" in this community recognized as one of the most prepared in the nation for the kind of killer waves that rolled across the Indian Ocean Dec. 26.

Stephanie Fritts, director of emergency management for Pacific County, has been trying for years to convince residents here that they can -- and should -- plan to survive a tsunami. The Indian Ocean tragedy, she said, has gotten everyone's attention and also drawn attention to how much more needs to be done.

"There are things we can do to improve our chances," she said, even though Long Beach is among only about a dozen communities nationwide (along with Ocean Shores and the Quinault Indian Reservation) to have won federal recognition as a "tsunami-ready" community by the National Weather Service.

The evacuation routes and maps initially drawn up for the region are no longer accurate, Fritts said, because some of the private roads designated as escape routes are now gated and locked. They're removing some of the tsunami evacuation route signs to avoid sending people down dead-end roads.

The tsunami hazard map for the Long Beach peninsula, based on an estimated maximum wave height of 30 feet, is being redone. The previous computer simulation didn't work, predicting waves in one area would be hundreds of feet high while predicting no waves in other areas known to be at risk.

Now, with the new evidence of waves that reached 80 to 100 feet in Indonesia, Fritts said she's concerned that some will simply throw up their hands and assume emergency planning is pointless.

"In a major event, people know they're just not going to be able to get off the peninsula," she said. But not every event will be major, Fritts said, and it makes sense to plan for the more likely threat of 10- or 20- or 30- foot high tsunamis.

"People need to realize that tsunamis are survivable," she said. But policymakers also should realize that none of the survival plans can be implemented unless more dollars and resources are put into this, Fritts said.

"We have a very small budget," she noted.

George Crawford, chief of earthquake and tsunami hazards for the state Emergency Management Division, noted that the Pacific Coast should probably have at least 90 emergency alert radio stations (known as All Hazard Alert Broadcasting, AHAB, radios).

"Unfortunately, we only have four," Crawford said. They are in Ocean Shores, La Push, Neah Bay and Port Townsend, he said, and nowhere else because of a lack of money.

Long Beach and Ocean Shores are more ready for a tsunami than some places, Crawford said, but nobody is really ready. Lack of urgency, which translates into a lack of funds, Crawford said, has hampered the best efforts of people like Fritts.

After the Indian Ocean tsunami, Congress has shown more interest in funding such tsunami warning systems. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Brian Baird, both D-Wash., called in to the conference to assure everyone they would push for the money.

But others at the conference said much needs to happen on many fronts -- on the basic science end of the problem down to making sure roads are open for escaping when the wave comes.

"We hope the Indian Ocean event will serve as a wake-up call," said Craig Weaver, chief seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey's Pacific region.

All of the high-tech science and technology thrown at detecting and warning us of a tsunami coming won't do those "on the beach" much good without basic education and preparation at the community level, Weaver said.

But Eddie Bernard, a top tsunami scientist and director of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said the new evidence from the Indian Ocean tsunami that the killer wave may have reached 100 feet along a significant stretch of coastline in Sumatra means the same thing must be considered a legitimate possibility here also.

"It's important for us to get an idea of the hazard we're dealing with," Bernard said. The Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Northwest coast is disconcertingly similar to the earthquake fault zone off Sumatra, he said.

Perhaps nowhere along the Washington coast is there more awareness of the tsunami threat than on the Long Beach peninsula, a narrow spit of land separating the Pacific Ocean from Willapa Bay.

And at least one resident thinks a blend of humor and time-honored Pacific Northwest resignation to nature's way is the best response to the situation.